Fact of the Day

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - SQUARE DEAL MEANING

Did you know.... This term for an equitable agreement is easy to define: a square deal is a fair deal. Perhaps that rhyme helped this expression succeed, but in any case, a square deal is the opposite of a deal that is bad, raw, or rough. 

 

This phrase emerged in the late 1800s. The first known use is from 1895 in Century Magazine: “I guess it ain’t quite a square deal between her and you.” In other words, someone is getting screwed. A truthful statement incorporates the term in a 1928 example from Britain’s Industrial Future: “It is impossible to get whole-hearted effort from men unless they are satisfied that they are getting a ‘square deal’.” 

 

In Vanity Fair in 2018, Doris Kearns Goodwin wrote about the patron president of this term: “[Theodore] Roosevelt looked to the future with what he called a ‘Square Deal’—for the rich and the poor, the capitalist and the wageworker.” A square deal is that elusive situation that benefits all.

 

 

Indeed, the most common association with square deal is likely Theodore Roosevelt’s domestic agenda of 1903. The Encyclopedia Britannica defines the term like so:

 

“[A] description by U.S. Pres. Theodore Roosevelt (served 1901–09) of his personal approach to current social problems and the individual. It embraced Roosevelt’s idealistic view of labor, citizenship, parenthood, and Christian ethics."

 

Roosevelt began using the phrase regularly at least one year earlier. When speaking to a group of Black citizens in Butte, Montana, in 1902, he talked about fighting alongside Black soldiers in the 9th and 10th Calvary in Santiago de Cuba, saying, “If a man is good enough to have him shot at while fighting beside me under the same flag, he is good enough for me to try to give him a square deal in civil life.”

 

He also applied the ethos of a square deal to labor relations. “That the motto of ‘fair play for the working man and a square deal to every American, whether employer or employee’ is as good a one as could possibly be desired,” Roosevelt wrote in a 1903 letter.

 

The Progressive Party (a.k.a. the Bull Moose Party) also adopted the square deal idea when it chose Roosevelt as its candidate in the 1912 presidential election. It’s a powerful political slogan, which is probably why it is still remembered to this day. A square deal appeals to the near-universal desire for fairness. Everyone fears and loathes the raw deal, so the opposite is always appealing.

 

On vs. Off the Square
But why is the square associated with fairness? Etymologist Michael Quinion has some relevant observations on the square being the most sincere and trustworthy shape:

 

“If you are ‘on the square,’ you’re honest or sincere, an idea that turns up in other idioms, such as ‘square deal.’ It may be from a square being an uncompromisingly straightforward shape, but a link with Freemasonry has been plausibly suggested. For masons, a square was a key instrument for accurately measuring a 90° angle, those of the corners of a square (also called ‘right angles’ because they were the correct or true ones), so that a structure ‘on the square’ had been properly built. Similarly, anything ‘off square’ had something wrong with it.”

 

The composition of the square is almost comically, well, square, with four equal sides implying equality and four right angles implying correctness, with no room for slants.

 

Think about the meaning of slant as synonym for an opinion, bias, or point of view. The square’s lack of slants, or god forbid, curves, is a perfect figurative representation of straightforwardness. A square deal plays it straight, or at least is advertised as doing so. Who could resist?

 

Source: Why is a ‘Square Deal’ Square?

[DarkRavie]

Fat of the Day - WHAT IS A HOSER?

 

Did you know... As brothers Bob and Doug McKenzie on ‘SCTV,’ actors Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas made ‘hoser’ popular—and there are plenty of theories about the word’s origin.

 

Fans of the legendary sketch comedy show SCTV are probably familiar with Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas’s dim-witted characters Bob and Doug McKenzie, the Molson beer-swilling Canadian brothers who ended each sentence with everyone’s favorite stereotypical Canadian interjection, eh. But it was the pair’s catchphrase—take off, hoser—that really gained traction in popular language.

 

What the Heck’s a Hoser?
When the two comedians called someone “hoser,” they were telling him that he was a foolish or unsophisticated slob who does nothing but watch hockey, wear tons of flannel, and propagate the lighthearted and absentminded view of the clichéd average Canadian male.

 

 

 

According to Stefan Dollinger of the University of British Columbia, who worked on the second edition of the Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principle, the Oxford English Dictionary entry for hoser cites the first written example as a 1981 article in the Toronto Star about the McKenzie characters, in which Moranis said “a hoser is what you call your brother when your folks won’t let you swear.” It can also be used as a term of endearment. (It is not, however, a word without issues: As Jacobin notes, “The hoser’s popularity comes from an everyman image. But being white and male, the hoser is not actually representative of Canada’s diverse population.”)

 

The Many Theories Behind Hoser’s Etymology
So where did hoser come from? The etymology is hard to trace. The OED has suggested a potential connection to hose, a North American slang term for penis dating back to the late 1920s. The Canadian Encyclopedia says that “the closeness of ‘hoser’ to ‘loser’ may provide a clue to the word’s true origin,” also suggesting that it may be related to the sense of hose meaning “deceive, swindle.” Other suggested origins come from different folk traditions and Canadian history.

 

One theory involves one of Canada’s favorite pastimes: pond hockey. The story goes that whenever groups would get together to play some shinny (another Canadian slang term for an informal pick-up hockey game) on the local pond, the losing team would have to hose down the ice with water afterwards to make the playing surface smooth again. In this version of hoser’s etymology, hose and loser were combined to make hoser, giving it a colloquially negative connotation tied to the national sport.

 

According to others, though, the word hoser originated with Canada’s Depression-era farmers, who would use a hose to siphon gas out of other people’s farming equipment because they couldn’t afford to buy it themselves. This supposed origin, however, has no concrete formal source.

 

Ultimately, hoser might come back to Dave Thomas and SCTV after all—at least, that’s according to a 2017 BBC article, which states that Thomas “created the noun from the verb ‘to hose,’ which was popular slang in Canada when Thomas was growing up in the 1950s. ‘I gave that guy 10 bucks and he hosed me! I never got what I paid for,’ Thomas says to illustrate the proper use of the verb, slipping into Doug’s patois without skipping a beat.”

 

 

Source: Where Does the Word ‘Hoser’ Come From?

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - JACK PRAT NURSERY RHYME

Did you know... The name Jack comes up a lot in nursery rhymes and fairy tales: “Jack and Jill,” “Little Jack Horner,” and “Jack and the Beanstalk” are just a few of the more well-known examples. Although “Jack Sprat” may not be in the nursery rhyme limelight, the two theories behind its meaning—both of which involve royalty—are just as interesting as the origins of better-known children’s poems. But first, here’s a quick refresher of the lyrics if you’ve forgotten them since childhood:

 

“Jack Sprat could eat no fat
His wife could eat no lean
And so betwixt the two of them
They licked the platter clean.”

 

The Meat of the Matter
Jack Sprat first appears in print around 1569—it cropped up twice in an anonymously published morality play titled The Marriage of Wit and Science: “Heard you ever such a counsel of such a Jack sprat?” and “ye are but Jacksprat to me.” Although the meaning of the moniker in this context isn’t certain, by 1699 Jack-Sprat is recorded in a slang dictionary as “a Dwarf, or very little Fellow, a Hop-on-my-thumb.” A sprat is also a type of small fish, which may be why it was used to describe people of shorter heights.

 

The earliest surviving printed record of the “Jack Sprat” nursery rhyme is from John Clarke’s 1639 collection of proverbs: “Jack will eat no fat, and Jill doth love no leane. / Yet betwixt them both they lick the dishes cleane.” Clarke’s book also mentions Sprat in another saying: “Jack sprat teacheth his grandame.”

 

 

Twenty years later, James Howell included a different version of the carnivorous-themed rhyme in his collection of proverbs, with Jack Sprat’s name being swapped out for “Archdeacon Pratt”:

 

“Archdeacon Pratt would eat no fatt,
His wife would eat no lean;
Twixt Archdeacon Pratt, and Ioan his wife,
The meat was eat up clean.”

 

However, the “Jack Sprat” version is the one that stood the test of time. Its lasting popularity is partly due to its inclusion in Mother Goose’s Melody; or Sonnets for the Cradle, an influential 18th-century book of nursery rhymes that helped popularize the Mother Goose figure. Each of the rhymes in this book—which includes “High Diddle Diddle” and “Baa, Baa, Black Sheep”—is accompanied by a maxim; the ditty about Jack Sprat and his wife feasting on meat apparently teaches the lesson that it is “Better to go to bed supperless, than rise in debt.”

 

Although the “Jack Sprat” rhyme often totals just four lines, other verses were written throughout the years. In 1849, James Halliwell-Phillipps printed a lengthy version of the tale, which he states “appears to be of some antiquity.” In this extended version of the rhyme, Jack Sprat courts and marries Joan Cole and the following verses largely detail the various animals—including a duck, pig, and cow—that the couple kill or keep.

 

Fit For a King
Classic children’s nursery rhymes were sometimes inspired by real historical events, and while “Jack Sprat” may simply be about a fictional couple whose eating habits complement each other, there are two theories as to who the tune might actually be referencing.

 

 

First up, it has been speculated that Jack Sprat and his wife are allusions to King Charles I and his Queen, Henrietta Maria of France, who ruled during the 17th century. Parliament restrained Charles’s spending on wars, which left him financially lean. Some versions of this theory then blame Henrietta for raising taxes (i.e. getting some fat) and picking the state and its people clean, while others pin it on both royals. Charles was also only around 5 feet tall, which could explain the possible use of the name Jack Sprat.

 

The second theory concerns Richard the Lionheart and his brother, Prince (and later King) John—who, along with the Sheriff of Nottingham, is one of the villains of the Robin Hood tales. The simplest version of this theory leaves Richard I out, focusing only on John—who came into power when his older brother left England to join the Third Crusade—and his wife, Isabella, Countess of Gloucester. Isabella was allegedly greedy, hence the rhyme’s reference to the wife eating the fat.

 

The addition of Richard to this theory involves him being captured in 1192 by Leopold V, Duke of Austria. The English king was then handed over to Henry IV, King of Germany and Holy Roman Emperor, and a ransom of 150,000 marks was demanded for his return. John reluctantly raised the money (well, most of it), which left the country’s coffers licked clean like the platter/dish from the rhyme.

 

 

Source: The Possibly Royal Origins of the ‘Jack Sprat’ Nursery Rhyme

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS

Did you know.... When Thomas Jefferson included “the pursuit of Happiness” as an unalienable right in the Declaration of Independence, he wasn't talking about fleeting joy. Here's the true meaning behind the quote.

 

One of the most famous quotes in American history comes from the Declaration of Independence, which proclaims that “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” are “unalienable Rights.”

 

These days, the right to pursue happiness is often thought to concern seeking subjective joy, but language is constantly evolving. Back in the 18th century, both pursuit and happiness had secondary definitions which completely change the meaning of the iconic quote.

 

Jump for Joy
When Thomas Jefferson drafted the declaration in the summer of 1776, he almost certainly wasn’t thinking of the joyful emotional state when listing happiness as a right. As political science professor James R. Rogers explained in First Things, at that time happiness could also mean “prosperity” and “well-being in the broader sense.” This sense encompassed “physical needs, but it also included a significant moral and religious dimension.”

 

So how do we know which definition Jefferson was using? The Founding Father based the declaration on similar contemporary political documents, many of which used happiness to mean the physical and spiritual well-being of all citizens rather than an individual’s fleeting pleasure. For instance, the Virginia Declaration of Rights—written mainly by George Mason and adopted on June 12, 1776—speaks of “the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.” 

 

 

This broader meaning of happiness is even clearer in later documents. The Massachusetts Constitution of 1780 notes that “the happiness of a people, and the good order and preservation of civil government, essentially depend upon piety, religion, and morality.” Similarly, the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 declares that “Religion, morality, and knowledge” are “necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind.”

 

The misunderstanding over what happiness means in this context isn’t just a modern problem. In a 1786 letter to James Monroe, James Madison complained that “ultimate happiness” is often misinterpreted as the “immediate augmentation of property and wealth.” If the latter definition were accurate, he surmised that “it would be the interest of the majority in every community to despoil & enslave the minority of individuals; and in a federal community to make a similar sacrifice of the minority of the component States.”

 

In Hot Pursuit
There's a reason why it’s merely the pursuit of happiness that’s a right rather than happiness itself. In a 1964 article published by The William and Mary Quarterly [PDF], historian Arthur Schlesinger pointed out that while pursuit could mean “chase” or “follow,” when Jefferson was putting quill pen to paper he was likely thinking of a different definition: “The action of following or engaging in something, as a profession, business, recreation, etc.”

 

This meaning of pursuit is synonymous with practice and experience, and so, in Schlesinger’s words, the Declaration of Independence actually “proclaimed the practicing rather than the quest of happiness as a basic right equally with life and liberty.” The Virginia Declaration of Rights is again helpful in illustrating this, thanks to its statement about not only “pursuing” happiness, but also “obtaining” it.

 

Based on this reading, “the pursuit of Happiness” doesn’t mean chasing whatever your heart desires; rather, it’s about engaging in activities which support overall physical, mental, and moral well-being.

 

The Origin of the Phrase
While “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” may feel like a distinctly American phrase, the Founding Fathers were actually inspired by an English philosopher. The idea traces its roots to John Locke’s Two Treatises of Government (1689), which states that mankind has a natural right “to preserve his property—that is, his life, liberty, and estate.” Jefferson replaced “estate” with “pursuit of Happiness,” but those words were also pulled from Locke. In An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689), the philosopher argues that “the foundation of liberty […] lies in a careful and constant pursuit of true and solid happiness.”

 

Although the declaration’s phrasing echoes Locke, this deeper conception of happiness dates back to at least ancient Greece. Greek philosophers—particularly Aristotle—contemplated eudaimonia, which is sometimes translated as “happiness,” but more accurately means “human flourishing” or “living well.”

 

The declaration’s “pursuit of Happiness” essentially repackaged the Greek concept of eudaimonia for American colonists in the 18th century. In an interview with Emory, theology professor Brent Strawn summarized that the phrase isn’t concerned with “momentary pleasurable sensations (‘I’m happy the sun came out this afternoon’) but with deep and extended qualities of life (the happiness one feels to be cancer-free, for instance).”

Source: The Pursuit of Happiness: The True Meaning of the Misunderstood Phrase

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - COOLING YOUR PETS

Did you know...  Unlike the human members of your household, your pets can’t ask you to blast the air conditioning on hot days. This can become a problem as temperatures rise. Thanks to their fur coats and a lack of sweat glands all over their bodies to cool them down, dogs can quickly get too hot in the sun. During the dog days of summer, every pet owner should learn the signs of overheating and the best ways to prevent it.

 

According to AARP, overheating occurs when an animal generates more body heat than they can regulate. If it persists, it can lead to such life-threatening conditions as heatstroke, brain damage, and kidney failure. Numerous factors contribute to your pet’s risk of overheating. A young, healthy dog might be fine going for a walk on an 80°F day in dry heat, while an older, less-active canine may feel uncomfortable outside on a 70°F day with high humidity. In general, weather that feels too hot for you is unsafe for your pet.

 

Panting is one way animals like dogs and cats regulate their body temperature. The rapid breathing encourages moisture to evaporate off their tongues, which cools them down the same way evaporating sweat cools humans. Some panting is normal, but heavy, prolonged panting could mean your pet is dangerously hot. Excessive drooling, lethargy, and bright red or blueish gums are also signs a dog has been in the heat for too long (for cats, dark red or gray gums is a sign of overheating).

 

If you notice your animal is overheating or suffering from heatstroke, take them to the vet right away. You can cool them down in the meantime by getting them into a shady spot, ideally in front of a fan or air conditioner, and giving them water to drink if they’re able to. Using a hose, spray bottle, or damp towel to wet their body with cool (not cold) water can also lower their temperature.

 

Even if your pet isn’t overheated, keeping them well-hydrated and in the shade on hot days can prevent an emergency trip to the vet (this will also help protect them from sunburn). It’s also wise to keep walks short during the summer and make sure the spot where your pet sleeps indoors is well-ventilated. If you take your pet with you on car trips, never leave them in the vehicle alone—even for short periods.

 

Heatstroke isn’t the only threat your pet faces this time of year. Hot pavement during the summer can damage their paws. Here’s an easy tip for checking if it's too hot to walk your dog.

 

 

Source: How to Spot—and Prevent—Overheating in Pets This Summer

Edited July 4 by DarkRavie

[DarkRavie]

KNOWLEDGE IS POWER

Did you know... English philosopher Francis Bacon is credited with coining the phrase ‘knowledge is power,’ but it has since acquired different meanings.

Knowledge is power is one of the most proverbial of proverbs. It’s succinct enough to fit on a bumper sticker and clear enough that everyone can grok it. But what did it originally mean?

 

A version of the saying was first spotted in the writing of philosopher Francis Bacon in 1598, with a distinctly religious meaning: “Knowledge itself is a power whereby he knoweth.” This refers to the omnipotence of God, which is a pretty powerful power. From there, the saying evolved, as language tends to do. Knowledge is power appeared in the writing of many authors over the years, including Thomas Hobbes and Michel Foucault.

 

 

One of the most notable is Thomas Jefferson, who used the saying several times in connection with something quite appropriate: a planned state university in Virginia. Here’s an example from an 1817 letter [sic throughout]:

 

“[This university] will probably be within a mile of Charlottesville, and four from Monticello, if the system should be adopted at all by our legislature who meet within a week from this time. my hopes however are kept in check by the ordinary character of our state legislatures, the members of which do not generally possess information enough to percieve the important truths, that knolege is power, that knolege is safety, and that knolege is happiness.”

 

For Jefferson, knowledge is power was the perfect pro-education sentiment. But like most proverbs, knowledge is power has been twisted and turned around and played with plenty of times over the years. J.S. Blackie wrote, in 1874’s On Self-Culture, “The maxim that knowledge is power is true only where knowledge is the main thing wanted.” In 2006, a New Scientist writer observed, “If knowledge is power, then today everyone has enormous power.” Both of those quotations question the literal truth of knowledge is power, probably because so much actual power seems to stem from less-than-intellectual sources. Perhaps knowledge is power is a type of wishful thinking by the knowledgeable.

 

But maybe knowledge is power is true on a smaller scale than the all-knowingness of God or the absolute truth implied by the proverb. A 1943 quotation from Science and Mechanics cited in the Oxford English Dictionary is less lofty, but more practical: “Zooming demands for technical books of many kinds … bear witness to the truth of that ancient copy-book maxim, ‘Knowledge is power.’ ” Knowing how to do something, such as fixing a toaster, is certainly equivalent to the power to do that thing. So maybe knowledge is power after all.

 

Another aphorism, this one dating from the 1700s, resonates with the idea that knowledge is power: A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. That could easily be rephrased, more optimistically, as a little knowledge is a powerful thing.

 

 

Source: Knowledge Is Power: A Brief History of the Philosophical Phrase

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - MILK JUGS

Did you know.... Whether you buy whole, 2 percent, or skim, the plastic containers milk comes in all share something in common: There’s an inverted circle built into one side of the jug where a smooth, flat plane would normally be. If you drink milk, you’ve probably seen this, but you may not know the ingenious reason behind the design.

 

According to Distractify, the concave circle on the side of a milk jug provides structural integrity. A full gallon of milk with flat, rigid sides may be fine sitting in your fridge, but if you were to drop it on the floor, it would likely rupture. The dimple can prevent that from happening. When a jug hits the ground, the circle warps outward and gives the milk a place to go when it expands on impact. Incorporating some literal wiggle room into the design makes the container more flexible, and therefore more durable.

 

The same feature comes in handy as the milk approaches its expiration date. Milk contains non-harmful microbes that expel gases over time. As these gases accumulate, pressure in the jug builds, and the flexible dimple stops the jug from exploding. An even more extreme example of this can be observed when you put a milk jug in the freezer. Liquids expand when frozen—that’s why if you try freezing a bottle or can of soda, you’ll end up with a shattered container and a mess in your freezer. The inverted circle on a milk jug accommodates this expansion, so you can stick your milk directly in the freezer without transferring it to a different container.

 

The dimpled milk jug is a common sight in the United States, but it’s not the only way milk sellers keep their product protected. In Canada, plastic milk bags became the less-fragile alternative to glass jugs thanks to the metric system.

 

 

Source: Why Do Milk Jugs Have Those Inverted Circles?

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - AMERICAN SUNSCREEN

Did you know.... Thanks to a law from 1938, new sunscreen ingredients have to go through a long FDA approval process before hitting the market. As a result, sunscreens sold in many Asian and European countries offer superior UV protection.

 

Summer 2024 began suddenly and jarringly, with August-like heat waves sweeping the U.S. People are stocking up on sunscreen to protect against uncomfortable sunburns in the short term and the possibility of skin cancer in the long term. However, according to most experts, the products available in the U.S. are inferior to the sunblock available in other high-income countries.

 

The active ingredients of sunscreen are UV filters—chemicals that absorb or block the sun’s ultraviolet radiation. In the U.S. manufacturers have a total selection of 16 Food and Drug Administration-approved UV filters. In the Europe Union they have 29, allowing for more potent sunscreen.

 

The reason stems from how UV filters are regulated in the U.S. A law from 1938 classifies sunscreen ingredients as drugs and requires a long FDA approval process—including animal testing—before they can go to market. In many other countries, sunscreen is considered a cosmetic with a faster, less strenuous approval process. The classification acts as a barrier to using newer UV filters and keeps many imported sunscreens off the shelves of American retailers.

 

More plentiful UV filter options have allowed the European Union to set higher recommended standards for sunscreen to protect against a broad range of UV light. In a 2017 study published in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, only 11 of 20 American sunscreens tested met EU standards, while 19 out of 20 met U.S. standards., indicating that the bar for UV protection is much lower in the U.S.

 

Many U.S. lawmakers are aware of the problem and are trying to fix it. In 2014, President Barack Obama signed the Sunscreen Innovation Act to spur the FDA to move along a backlog of applications for sunscreen ingredients, some of which had been in limbo for years. The law required the agency to respond to the eight applications in its queue by a specific date and mandated it respond to future ones within a year. High-profile congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez also took up the cause of better sunscreen last summer.

 

However, none of this has yet led to final approval for any new sunscreen types. In fact, the last new approval was handed down in 1999, when YouTube, The Hunger Games, and Billie Eilish didn’t even exist yet.

 

Source: Why American Sunscreen Falls Short of the Rest of the World

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - CODE-SWITCHING

Did you know.... During a recent congressional hearing on child welfare, Paris Hilton took a moment to compliment New York Representative Claudia Tenney. “I love your jacket, the sparkles are amazing,” she said, telling Tenney she’d like to “find out who made it later.”

 

The aside garnered some attention on social media, not for what Hilton said but for how she said it—or, more specifically, how her voice changed when she returned to her testimony. Suddenly, Hilton’s pitch dropped, and the vocal fry so noticeable a second earlier more or less disappeared. 

 

 

 

Hilton had spoken differently when addressing an individual in a friendly capacity than when addressing the whole room in a formal one. In short, she code-switched. It’s something we all do in some way or another—but the exact how and why varies from person to person and from situation to situation.

 

What Is Code-Switching?
Code-switching is a linguistics term for the practice of tailoring our language to our social context, like speaking only Spanish at home and only English at school. But that’s code-switching at its most basic. If, say, you speak Spanish and English and you’re with people who also speak Spanish and English, you might engage in what’s called “intra-sentential code-switching,” or mixing both languages within a single sentence. For example: Pero why can’t I clean my room mañana? (“But why can’t I clean my room tomorrow?”). You can also shift between dialects, which is common among Black Americans who speak AAL (African American Language, a.k.a. African American Vernacular English) in social contexts but may forgo it in formal settings.

 

At this point, though, code-switching has transcended official languages and dialects and become a colloquial catch-all term for any kind of socially motivated shift in language (whether intentional or not). Does your voice creep up a couple octaves when you talk to babies (or dogs)? Do you catch yourself pronouncing water as “wooder” after a few days with your Philadelphia relatives? Do your work emails bear almost no grammatical or lexical resemblance to the DMs you send your best friend? Those scenarios all involve code-switching.

 

In fact, to plenty of scholars, code-switching transcends language altogether. Psychologist Kia-Rai Prewitt defined it for the Cleveland Clinic as “a way of changing your style, dress, or maybe even language or behavior, in order to match what you think would be appropriate or would make someone else feel comfortable.”

 

Why Do We Code-Switch?
Prewitt’s definition touches on why code-switching can be problematic: People often feel forced to bury elements of their identity—racial, ethnic, religious, gender, etc.—in order to prioritize other people’s prejudices over their own comfort and/or avoid getting stereotyped. Examples of this, per the Cleveland Clinic, include “cover[ing] up traditional tattoos—like Inuit kakiniit or Māori tā moko—to fit in with others,” using a nickname so people don’t have to learn how to pronounce your real name, not wearing your hijab or yarmulke “to avoid attracting unwanted attention,” and “adjusting [your] vocal cadence to ‘sound straight.’ ”

 

 

 

Constant pressure to code-switch in this way is stressful and exhausting, especially when you feel like your professional and personal opportunities—or even your safety—depend on your ability to keep it up. “For people who intentionally code-switch in school or workplace environments, they experience a heightened stress response,” psychologist Myles Durkee told the University of Michigan’s LSA Magazine, “and it’s accompanied by a degree of self-doubt about their code-switching ability: ‘Am I doing it right? Is it working? Should I continue this performance?’ All of this occurs while these individuals simultaneously perform their regular duties and responsibilities. Over time, this becomes a significant emotional and cognitive burden.”

 

That said, not all code-switching falls into this category. We often code-switch, especially linguistically, without even knowing we’re doing it. In 2013, NPR listener Lisa Okamoto, who was born and raised speaking English and Japanese in Los Angeles, recounted a story in which she got so terrified at a haunted house in Japan that she started screaming curse words—in English. “I consider myself fully bilingual, but I realized at this moment that, when I’m in a fight or flight/survivor instinct situation, my mind switches to English,” she wrote.

 

Your mind also might switch to a certain language or dialect because it’s the best one for the job of expressing a certain idea or concept. AAL, for example, has a verb form called the “habitual be.” He be working doesn’t mean that he’s working right now—it means he’s often working or he has a tendency to work. Standard English simply can’t capture that sentiment as economically or as evocatively as AAL can.

 

There are countless other reasons we code-switch in language, behavior, and appearance. And while it can sometimes seem a little startling to watch someone adopt a different affect or accent mid-speech—like Paris Hilton did—what’s important to remember is that it’s not “fake.” It’s just code-switching, and everyone does it.

 

Source: What Is Code-Switching—And Why Do We Do It?

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - CATS

Did you know.... Even if they ignore you when you're home, your cat does miss you when you leave. Here's how long you can safely leave them alone before they become distressed.

 

Cats are known for being aloof and independent creatures. It takes time to win their trust, and once you do, they often still like their space. Despite being lower-maintenance than dogs—they groom themselves (though can sometimes benefit from help) and don’t have to be taken for walks—they still need regular care. So if you need to make a trip away from home, how long can you safely leave your cat by themselves?

 

The Maximum Time a Cat Can Be Alone
According to experts, the answer is a lot shorter than you may think. Veterinarian and cat behaviorist Michael Thompson told Reader's Digest that cats can be left alone for only 24 to 48 hours.

 

Without enough stimulation and with their humans gone, cats can experience boredom, anxiety, loneliness, and even depression. They may meow more than usual, go to the bathroom outside of the litter box, or hide—all signs of a stressed-out kitty. Luckily, however, there are some things you can do to make their time alone less stressful.

 

How to Make Your Cat Comfortable
For one, make sure the bare necessities are covered. As always, the litter box should be clean, and they should have plenty of food and water. If their feeding times can be kept the same as usual, that’s even better, as cats love a reliable routine. Mental stimulation is important, too; they should have things to play with, scratch, and explore, such as toys, a cat perch, or even things like a cardboard box. And finally, if your cat is particularly prone to separation anxiety, you could play a video for cats (yes, they exist) on the TV or splurge on a calming spray or diffuser.

 

If you’ll be gone for a longer period of time, it’s recommended that you have someone pop by to check in on your cat every once in a while. Even with amenities like automatic feeders and self-cleaning litter boxes, cats are inherently social creatures. Having a person pay them a visit can help fill their needs for play, exercise, and socialization, as well as give you peace of mind that they’re not experiencing any health issues while you aren’t around. Just think twice about using a boarding facility. Cats are very territorial, and being placed in a new environment will likely only cause them more stress.

 

Exceptions to the Guideline
Of course, as any cat owner could tell you, every cat has their own personality. It’s important to consider your cat’s individual needs when planning time away from home. Ideally, for example, cats with health issues as well as kittens less than a year old really shouldn’t be left at home overnight. And newly adopted cats should be given plenty of time—potentially a few weeks—to adjust to their new home before being left alone. Each individual is different, and owners know their pets best.

 

For most cats, though, a day or two on their own with the proper preparations won’t do any harm, so don’t feel guilty about that weekend away. Adult cats can sleep up to 20 hours a day, too—meaning if you're gone for two days, they may only be awake for 8 hours of it. But don’t be surprised when they make it known how much they missed you when you come home.

 

Source: How Long Can You Leave Your Cat Home Alone?

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - HOW ASTRONAUTS DRINK WATER

Did you know.... Astronauts spending time at the International Space Station stay hydrated with a refreshing, filtered blend of recycled shower water and pee.

 

Transporting anything to the International Space Station is expensive: Sending one gallon of water, for example, costs $83,000 [PDF]. Now consider that each of four astronauts on the ISS needs 12 gallons of water per day for drinking and other uses. NASA's bill would go into the stratosphere.

 

Tanks of H20 can't be constantly shipped to the International Space Station, so the station has a complex water system that squeezes every last drop of available, drinkable liquid out of the environment. That leaves astronauts drinking a filtered mixture that includes recycled shower water, old astronaut sweat, and pee. The station also keeps about 530 gallons of water in reserve in case of an emergency.

 

The NASA water systems on the ISS collect moisture from breath and sweat, urine from people and research animals, and runoff from sinks and showers to keep the station hydrated. “It tastes like bottled water, as long as you can psychologically get past the point that it’s recycled urine and condensate that comes out of the air,” Layne Carter, who manages the ISS water system from the Marshall Flight Center in Alabama, told Bloomberg Businessweek. 

 

 

 

However, not all the ISS astronauts drink recycled urine. The ISS is split into two sections, one run by Russia, and one by the United States, and they have two different water systems. The U.S. system collects condensate, runoff, and urine to create about 3.6 gallons of drinkable water per day. However, the Russian astronauts drink water processed from only shower runoff and condensate, skipping the urine (producing slightly less than that 3.6 gallons). Occasionally, the NASA astronauts will go over to the Russian side of the ISS and grab the Russian supplies of urine to process it themselves. No need to waste potential water supplies! 

 

In addition, the two sides of the ISS disinfect their water two different ways. Since 1981, NASA has been using iodine to disinfect water, a process that requires the water to be filtered since too much iodine can cause thyroid issues. Russia has been using silver to disinfect its water since the launch of the Mir station by the Soviet Union in 1986. 

 

 

Source: How Do Astronauts Get Drinking Water on the ISS?

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - ONCE UPON A TIME

Did you know... The formulaic fairy tale opening has a long history—and serves a practical purpose.

 

There are some tropes that crop up time and time again in fairy tales, from princes and princesses sharing true love’s kiss to evil witches casting magical curses. But the most common shared feature of fairy tales comes at the very beginning.

 

The words once upon a time form a staple opening phrase that even transcends the English language. Sayings are found in languages around the world: Finnish fairy tales begin with olipa kerran (literally “once there was”), while in Afrikaans the expression is eendag lang, lang gelede (“one day long, long ago”). But why do fairy tales so often begin with once upon a time?

 

A Tale as Old as Time

The phrase once upon a time didn’t just spring into storybooks—or onto the lips of storytellers—fully formed. A similar expression appears in The Liflade ant te Passiun of Seinte Juliene (The Life and the Passion of Saint Juliana), which has been dated to around 1225. Although preceded by two short introductory paragraphs, the story really kicks off with Wes i thon time, as the redunge telleth (“In that time, as the legend tells”).

 

The phrase becomes a little more familiar during the 14th century. Onys y wiste oppon a day pops up in Sir Ferumbras, a poem set during Charlemagne’s rule of France and published around 1380; soon afterward, ones on a tyme appears in “The Knight’s Tale” from Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales.

 

The words increasingly took their now-standard place at the beginning of stories during the 1500s. Abraham Fraunce’s The Countess of Pembroke’s Ivychurch (1591), for instance, begins with “Once on a time when Nymphs and Pastors chanc’d to be sporting.” By the end of the century, the saying was popular enough to be satirized, with George Peele’s 1595 satiric play The Old Wives’ Tale including the lines, “Once vppon a time there was a King or a Lord, or a Duke that had a faire daughter, the fairest that euer was; as white as snowe, and as redd as bloud.”

 

Beginning fairy tales with once upon a time was then further solidified thanks to the first English translations of famous fairy tales from Continental Europe. Robert Samber’s 1729 translation of Charles Perrault’s 1695 fairy tale collection renders the French il était une fois (“there was one time”) as “once upon a time.” The same goes for Edgar Taylor’s 1823 translation of es war einmal (“it was once”) from the fairy tales of the German Brothers Grimm. Mary Howitt also chose once upon a time in 1846 when translating Hans Christian Anderson’s Danish fairy tales, which begin der var engang (“there was once”).

 

There are also a few languages that start stories with something completely different to once upon a time, though. Polish fairy tales typically begin with beyond seven mountains, beyond seven forests (za siódmą górą za siódmym lasem), while Korean folk tales start with when tigers used to smoke (호랑이 담배 피우던 시절, or holangi dambae piudeon sijeol).

 

Once Upon a Dream
That virtually all languages have a standard starting phrase for fairy tales that removes them from the here and now isn’t mere coincidence—it actually serves a useful purpose. Writer Maria Konnikova points out that this far-flung setting and time period creates a “distance and vagueness,” that provides “an invitation for fantasy and imagination to take the stuff of real life and do with it what they will—and perhaps, to translate the newfound truths back from story to actuality.”

 

Author Anthony Madrid ascribes a rather more practical reason to folktales not being set in the present: “You’d be opening yourself up for interruptions.” A contemporary setting could lead to questions about who the characters in the story really are, but once upon a time stops those queries in their tracks.

 

That isn’t the only reason Madrid thinks the phrase caught on, though. Starting fairy tales with a formulaic set of words lets people immediately know what kind of story it’s going to be. Madrid likens this to the information imparted in the first few seconds of watching a cartoon: “The fact of the thing being a cartoon means that almost all the dreariness of adult affairs, and the curdlingness of adult ambiguity, will be excluded. Instead, the presentation will be geared toward enjoyment.” The phrase once upon a time serves this same scene-setting purpose, letting readers and listeners know right away that the story will have a fantasy flourish and (likely) a happily ever after ending. 

 

Source: Why So Many Stories Begin With ‘Once Upon a Time’

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - TENNIS BALLS

Did you know... The practice dates back over 100 years. Tennis balls occupy a unique space in sports equipment. (And no, we’re not talking about the fact they’re prized by dogs.) They’re shipped and sold in a pressurized pop-top container, a peculiar method of distribution that you don’t see with baseballs or basketballs. So why do tennis balls require this type of treatment?

 

Like a lot of packaged goods, it comes down to shelf life. Tennis balls have a felt-covered surface with a hollow rubber core that’s filled with either air or gas and pressurized to around 27 pounds per square inch (PSI), or around 12 PSI more than normal air pressure at sea level. If the balls were sold “loose,” meaning they came either in standard packaging or sold out of bins, they would quickly lose their internal pressure. Putting them in a sealed can forces the ball to retain its internal PSI: As a result, the balls are as pressurized and bouncy upon opening as they were at the time of manufacturing.

 

So does this mean balls begin to lose their bounce as soon as they’re opened? Pretty much. The rubber used isn’t airtight, and air can therefore escape from inside the ball to the outside. The process speeds up once the ball is put in play, with every whack of a racket and bounce off the court forcing more air out.

 

For an average player, this could mean being able to use a tennis ball in prime condition for around two weeks. In a professional setting, the balls may be switched out much more frequently, with new cans dispensed every seven to nine games.

 

The origin of pressure-packing tennis balls dates to the 1920s, when sporting goods companies  Wilson and Pennsylvania (later known as Penn) began promoting an airtight cardboard (later metal) tube.

 

“Pressure Packing, exclusive with Pennsylvania Balls, represents the greatest improvement made in tennis balls since the inception of the game,” read one can.

 

These early pressurized containers had a key that opened them, sardine-style, but couldn’t be resealed. The more modern soda-style pop-top with a plastic lid was introduced by Penn in 1972. This was around the same time the balls defaulted to the optic yellow color to make for easier visibility when games were broadcast on television.

 

So will a sealed can of tennis balls last for years? Not likely. Air will still find its way out of the cans, so an old canister discovered in your basement may not have the bounce you’re looking for.

 

Because the balls have such a short lifespan for optimal performance, the game of tennis has a waste problem: According to a 2023 Associated Press story, 330 million balls wind up in landfills each year. Don’t tell your dog.

 

 

Source: Why Do Tennis Balls Come in Airtight Containers?

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - GOLDILOCKS AND THE THREE BEARS

Did you know... Goldilocks as we know her didn’t even appear in the earliest written versions of the fairy tale.

 

In most modern versions of “Goldilocks and the Three Bears,” Goldilocks is depicted as a blonde-haired girl who trespasses in the home of three bears. She eats from three bowls of porridge and lays on three beds—with the last one being “just right” in each case (a concept now known as the Goldilocks Principle)—before being discovered by the bear family and escaping without incident.

 

These elements may seem like staples of the story, but none of them were actually present in the first written versions of the fairy tale. Read on to find out how “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” has evolved over the years.

 

Hungry as a Bear
In 1831, Eleanor Mure created a handmade book titled “The Story of The Three Bears” as a birthday present for her 4-year-old nephew [PDF]. She described it as a “celebrated nursery tale,” indicating its popularity in the oral tradition. But instead of a curious young girl, the intruder is an angry old woman; instead of eating porridge, she drinks milk. There’s also no mention of the bears being a nuclear family, although one of them is described as “little bear.” The ending is considerably darker than the modern version, with the bears trying—and failing—to burn and drown the woman before deciding to “chuck her aloft on St. Paul’s churchyard steeple.”

 

Six years later, Robert Southey published a similar tale in The Doctor, Vol. IV. The main character is still an old woman, but it’s porridge she eats, with the third bowl being “neither too hot, nor too cold, but just right.” All three bears are male and they’re given their now-common descriptions of small, medium, and large—which is reflected in the different typefaces used for their speech. The story finishes with the woman escaping by jumping out of a window, but her fate thereafter is a mystery.

 

 

Southey’s telling of the ursine tale proved so popular that not long afterwards George Nicol retold it in rhyming verse along with illustrations. Unaware of Mure’s earlier picture book (as it hadn’t been publicly published), Nicol describes Southey as the story’s “Great, original Concoctor.” Mure’s earlier authorship wasn’t widely known until the mid-20th century.

 

The fairy tale’s main character was then given an age reduction and a name in 1850. In A Treasury of Pleasure Books for Young Children, Joseph Cundall explains that he decided to make her a young girl “because there are so many other stories of old women.” However, she wasn’t yet known as Goldilocks, with Cundall naming her “Silver-hair.” By the end of this decade, the trio of bears had also become a father, mother, and child.

 

The girl’s hair started changing from silver to gold during the 1860s. In an 1864 literacy lesson book, for instance, she is called “Golden Hair.” The first known use of the name Goldilocks in connection with the tale comes from a letter published in 1875: “I was the little, small wee bear, and baby was to be the goldilocks.” However, the lack of capitalization suggests this may simply be a description of the character—goldilocks has been used to describe blonde hair since the 1540s—rather than a name. By at least 1904 she had officially been dubbed Goldilocks, but the name really caught on thanks to the popularity of Flora Annie Steel’s English Fairy Tales (1918).

 

Poking the Bear
Although the book that Eleanor Mure handmade is currently the oldest known definitive version of “Goldilocks and the Three Bears,” there are a few older stories that likely had an influence on the fairy tale.

 

Folklorist Joseph Jacobs believes the story may be predated by “Scrapefoot,” which is the same narrative, except that the trio of bears live in a castle and the intruder is a male fox named Scrapefoot. In his 1894 collection of fairy tales, Jacobs notes that “Scrapefoot” comes from “Mrs. H., who heard it from her mother over forty years ago.” The book’s publisher, David Nutt, theorizes that “Southey heard the story told of an old vixen, and mistook the rustic name of a female fox for the metaphorical application to women of fox-like temper.”

 

 

Which version of the story was told first isn’t known, but traces of the tale also appear in a few other older fairy tales. In 1812, the Brothers Grimm published “Snow White,” which sees the titular princess go into the home of the seven dwarfs, eat a little from each of their plates, and then fall asleep after testing each of their beds. When the dwarfs return home, they question who has been in their house—much like the three bears—but instead of being kicked out like Goldilocks, Snow White is invited to stay.

 

A passing resemblance to “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” can also be found in the Norwegian folktale “The Knights in Bear-shapes” and the Romanian story “The Bewitched Brothers.” The latter features two eagles rather than three bears, but both include a scene of a young woman stealing food after entering a house belonging to talking animals. 

 

Source: The Evolution of ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - THE BOUQUET

Did you know... Thanks to the ancient Romans, today’s brides never have to worry about what to do with their hands in wedding photos.

 

While the bridal bouquet isn’t exactly a wedding necessity—the show could technically go on without it—it’s still a pretty integral part of the ceremony. To put this in perspective, just imagine how odd it would seem for a bride to walk down the aisle empty-handed.

 

So where did the tradition come from? Though some have suggested wedding flowers were originally used to mask body odor before frequent bathing became the norm, that’s a misconception. In fact, the earliest bridal bouquets didn’t contain very many flowers, if any—instead, they mostly comprised herbs. According to Reader’s Digest, ancient Romans were the first to adopt the practice of sending their brides down the aisle with bundles of herbs, which symbolized things like fidelity and fertility.

 

Dill, already a known aphrodisiac at the time, was especially common in those bouquets, and it was also often served at wedding receptions to help the bride and groom prepare to consummate their bond. Garlic was sometimes used in the bouquets, too, since it was thought to protect the bride from bad luck or evil spirits.

 

Over the following centuries, people started to introduce other flora into their wedding bouquets, flowers included. As Snopes reports, marigolds gained popularity in 16th-century England as a symbol of faithfulness and endless love, because marigolds are so faithful to the sun—blooming in daylight and closing their petals at night. And, like dill, they were considered an aphrodisiac.

 

Then, during the Victorian era, floriography (the language of flowers) became a prevalent fad, and people began to send each other carefully assembled bouquets of flowers with specific meanings, which your handy floral dictionary could help you decipher. According to Atlas Obscura, pennyroyal meant “You must leave,” for example, while a pineapple would clearly convey to your lover that you think they’re perfect.

 

Secret flower messages fell out of fashion as the world shifted focus to World War I, but bridal bouquets never did—though you might want to make sure yours doesn’t contain any pennyroyal, just in case your soon-to-be spouse happens to be a closet floriographer.

 

 

Source: Why Do Brides Carry Bouquets?

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - THE WORD "RESTAURANT"

Did you know... French cuisine is often considered the epitome of fine dining, and that could be because French cooks are said to have launched the modern restaurant — and even invented the word “restaurant” itself. Many etymologists and historians attribute the origins of both to A. Boulanger, a Parisian soup vendor who set up shop in 1765. Boulanger peddled bouillons restaurants — so-called restorative meat and vegetable broths, from the French restaurer, meaning “to restore or refresh” — an act that wasn’t entirely revolutionary, since other cooks were selling healing soups from “health houses” around the same time. But Boulanger’s approach was different because he also offered a menu of other meals at a time when most taverns and vendors served just one option, dictated by the chef. Boulanger’s concept of seating guests and allowing them to choose their desired meal exploded in popularity after the French Revolution at the end of the 18th century, as kitchen workers who formerly served aristocratic households set up their own dining rooms or joined new eateries. By 1804, French diners could choose from more than 500 restaurants across the country.

 

Some historians disagree with this long-told tale of the restaurant’s origin, suggesting there isn’t much evidence by way of historical documentation to prove Boulanger was a real person. And others believe attributing the public dining room to French ingenuity isn’t wholly accurate, since humans have been offering up their cooking talent to the hungry masses for millennia. Take, for example, how Chinese chefs in major cities such as Kaifeng and Hangzhou customized menus to appeal to traveling businessmen looking for familiar meals nearly 700 years before France’s iteration of the restaurant. Or the excavated ruins at Pompeii dating to 79 CE that include ornately decorated food stalls called thermopolia, where hungry Romans could choose from a variety of ready-to-eat dishes. Though the names have differed, smart humans have been selling snacks to each other for a long, long time.

 

The first American diners were mobile.
Most of the diners Americans patronize today are stationary spots, but the country’s earliest greasy spoons were more like modern food trucks. First called “night lunch wagons” by Rhode Island inventor Walter Scott in 1872, the horse-drawn diners served hot meals to patrons who were often late-shift workers or partiers looking for meals long after other restaurants had closed. Soon after, ingenious restaurateurs developed rolling eateries complete with seats, some providing both a meal and transportation to hungry diners looking to travel across town. By the 1890s, trains began incorporating the concept (ticket holders were previously responsible for supplying their own meals), debuting dining cars that fed patrons on long journeys across the growing West. The original dining carriages, however, quickly fell out of style; maintenance costs, city bans, and competition from brick-and-mortar restaurants pushed many proprietors out of business by the early 1900s. Those that survived swapped their carts for permanent locations often resembling their original carts or made from modified railroad dining cars — an iconic look that remains today.

 

 

Source: The word “restaurant” literally means “food that restores” and once referred to broths.

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - ALCOHOL HUMAN INVENTION

Did you know... The wheel is credited as one of humankind’s most important inventions: It allowed people to travel farther on land than ever before, irrigate crops, and spin fibers, among other key benefits. Today, we often consider the wheel to be the ultimate civilization game-changer, but it turns out that creating the multipurpose apparatus wasn’t really on humanity’s immediate to-do list. Our ancient ancestors worked on other ideas first: boats, musical instruments, glue, and even alcohol. The oldest evidence of booze comes from China, where archaeologists have unearthed 9,000-year-old pottery coated with beer residue; in contrast, early wheels didn’t appear until around 3500 BCE (about three millennia later), in what is now Iraq. But even when humans began using wheels, they had a different application — rudimentary versions were commonly used as potter’s wheels, a necessity for mass-producing vessels that could store batches of brew (among other things). 

 

Some researchers believe our long-standing relationship with alcohol began 10 million years ago thanks to a genetic mutation that allowed our bipedal ancestors to consume overly ripe fruit. Alcohol consumption eventually transitioned from a snack-time byproduct to a purposefully crafted, fermented beverage, and different cultures began to create their own brews independently. After China’s beer and wine appeared around 7000 BCE, early vintners in the Caucasus Mountains followed 1,000 years later. Sumerian brewers crafted beer around 3000 BCE, while Indigenous communities in the Americas, such as the Aztecs and Incas, later made their own alcoholic drinks from agave and corn. It may seem surprising that ancient humans were so fermentation-focused, but early alcohols played a major role in prehistoric communities: Booze was often the center of religious and social celebrations, and could serve as a go-to cure for illness and pain. In some cases, it even acted as a nutritious, probiotic boost during times of food scarcity. With their many uses, both lifesaving and life-enhancing, brewed beverages have withstood the test of time.

 

It takes eight years to grow agave plants for tequila.
When European colonists first encountered Mexico’s native agave plants, they were intrigued by the succulents the Aztecs had been using to make clothing, rope, and intoxicating drinks. The spike-tipped plants, which grow as tall as 20 feet, were dug up and transplanted to greenhouses and botanical gardens throughout Spain, Portugal, and other parts of Europe starting in the 16th century. But most agave plants struggled to flourish in areas lacking their natural arid climate; in cooler countries, they were dubbed “century plants,” because those that survived the overseas journey didn’t bloom for nearly 100 years. Agave plants mature much faster when left in their natural habitats, but growing the crop for today’s tequila production is still a time investment. It traditionally takes about eight years before the plants are ready to harvest, though some agave crops are left to grow even longer.

 

 

Source: Humans invented alcohol before we invented the wheel.

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - BLACK CURRENT

Did you know.... In the United Kingdom, black currants are a go-to flavor for candies, beverages, and some medications, but less than an estimated 1% of Americans have ever sampled the fruit. The small, purple-black berries (which taste like a blueberry-cranberry blend) grow in clusters on the Ribes nigrum bush, and were once enjoyed by American colonists and early presidents. In 1899, an estimated 12,000 acres of commercial farmland were dedicated to this crop, which was harvested for wine, baked into pies, and preserved as jam — but the success of American black currants was short-lived, thanks to an ecological snafu. 

 

In the early 1900s, researchers discovered that pine trees near black currant plantings often became sick with a type of fungus known as white pine blister rust. The disease causes lesions on branches and trunks; as the blisters spread, the tree begins to die, and its evergreen needles turn a rusty hue. In an effort to protect the white pine logging industry — one of the most valuable in the nation at the time, and worth up to $1 billion — Congress banned black currants in 1911, going so far as to destroy currant farms with herbicides. Five decades later, botanists lobbied in favor of a return to currant farming, arguing that newly developed bushes were disease-resistant and posed little risk when planted away from pine trees. But despite federal approval for growing the currants in 1966, many states upheld their bans. Connecticut’s 1929 law fined anyone in possession of currant plants up to $25 until 1988, and New York — the top currant producer of old — held out until 2003. Today, black currants are making a slow comeback, with berry farmers in New York, Minnesota, Connecticut, and elsewhere hoping these fast-growing vines will be restored to their former glory.

 

Bristlecone pine trees keep their needles for 30 years.
Pine trees are known among arborists for their longevity, with some species living 300 to 500 years. Bristlecone pines are especially long-lived, with the slow-growing elders of the species reaching nearly 5,000 years old. Bristlecones are in no rush to grow, a feature that helps these hardy conifers survive in challenging climates. Primarily found among the Sierra Nevada and Rocky Mountain ranges, the trees survive despite short growing seasons, often intensely cold temperatures, rocky soils, and winds that form their trunks and branches into gnarly twists. To thrive, the trees conserve much of their energy by retaining their needles; unlike other pine trees that replace their bristly leaves every two to seven years, bristlecones hold onto their needles for about 30 years or more.

 

 

Source: Growing black currants was once banned in the U.S.

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - CRICKETS MEAN SILENCE? Why?

Did you know... Cricket chirps can reach 100 decibels. So why do we use them as a byword for ‘silence’?

 

What are the sounds of silence? With all due respect to Simon and Garfunkel, the most common answer is “crickets.” This noisy insect has somehow become synonymous with no sound at all.

 

This sense of the word crickets has yet to make the Oxford English Dictionary (though it surely will eventually). Still, it has plentiful coverage in Merriam-Webster, which added it to the dictionary in September 2023 with the definition “a conspicuous lack of response.” In discussing the term in a “Words We’re Watching” feature—which cites examples going back to the early 2000s—Merriam-Webster describes how crickets originally conveyed a sense of a rural setting:

 

“Crickets are often used by writers to convey atmosphere or to create a sense of place. That is, not the insects themselves, but rather the sound that crickets make. The chirping of crickets is the sound of nature on a summer night, and it has become a kind of cultural shorthand that indicates much with a single word: the setting is far from the city and far from people.”

 

The term seems to have evolved from senses indicating a rural setting—which is less noisy than the city by a lot—to any place or stretch of time quiet enough that, in theory, only the sound of crickets could be heard, as in this example from the 2007 novel Agnes and the Hitman: “There was a silence long enough to hear crickets in, and Agnes thought, If he makes some crack about me being not little, I’m gonna hit him again, and then he spoke.”

 

From there, crickets became a term for silence itself, one clear enough that it can stand alone as its own sentence, functioning as a sound(less) effect in writing. (Movies may have played a role in this: As Merriam-Webster notes, screenwriters have used it as “cinematic shorthand for quiet country locations” in scripts.)

 

Green’s Dictionary of Slang surprisingly has no examples until 2024, when it records a post on the social media platform Bluesky about a double standard in political coverage: “If Biden had called his wife Jill ‘Joan,’ how much ink would we see about how he’s old, senile + losing it? Yet The Other Guy ... crickets.”

 

This is typical of how the term is used. When a standup comedian’s joke bombs? Crickets. When a teacher baffles students? Crickets. When a band plays an unknown song instead of one of your favorites? Crickets. Crickets are the patron animal of silent awkwardness, a total non-reaction.

 

Crickets is a bit of a paradoxical term, as it means or indicates silence, but literally refers to some pretty noisy creatures. According to some sources, crickets can chirp as loudly as 100 decibels, which is about as loud as a snowmobile (a fact you’re likely all too aware of if you’ve ever tried to fall asleep with one trapped in your house). Even the word itself, borrowed from French, imitates the noise the insect makes. Some older, now-obscure expressions reference the boisterousness of the cricket: Lively as a cricket, for example, or merry as a cricket, were used in English as early as the early 1500s. An 1815 use by J. Mathers describes one happy and satisfied fellow: “I slept sound, ate and drank heartily, grew as merry as a cricket and as fat as a porker.”

 

This led to a sense of cricket meaning “a merry or lively person” from the 1600s on, which is still around in recent times, as seen in a Boston Globe use from 2002: “Her friend and fellow Wellesley Friends Meeting member ... described her as a ‘lively little cricket’.”

So, the cricket can signify merriment and noise or awkwardness and silence. That’s pretty good for a humble little insect.

 

 

Source: Why Do We Say “Crickets” When It’s Silent?

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the day - WHY ARE THEY CALLED DEVILED EGGS?

Did you know.... It’s a testament to deviled eggs’ hallowed place in side dish culture that we routinely utter their diabolical name with no questions asked. 

 

But we do have some questions. For example, is there a version of Genesis wherein Eve’s forbidden fruit is a stuffed egg? Are the hard-boiled halves meant to evoke the glowing yellow eyes of Satan himself? Was the inventor of the dish just a guy named John Devil?

 

The Devil You Don’t Know

As far back as the late 18th century, people used the word devil for “any of various highly-seasoned savory dishes,” per the Oxford English Dictionary. In his 1788 work, Brother Peter to Brother Tom: An Expostulatory Epistle, English satirist John Wolcot mentions how “diabolically hot” a “downright devil” is and then devotes a whole stanza to explaining exactly what he meant by that:

 

 

“By Dev’l, (without thy being born a wizard)
Though ought’st to know I mean a turkey’s gizzard;
So christen’d for its quality, by man,
Because so oft ’tis loaded with [cayenne]—
This dev’l is such a red-hot bit of meat
As nothing but the dev’l himself should eat.”

 

Wolcot’s implication that devils are so named because they’re too red-hot for anyone but the devil to eat might be poetic license: Sources often attribute this sense of devil more broadly to the comparison between Hell’s heat and the heat of a spicy dish. The term was even sometimes used to refer to spices or spiciness in general.

 

With regard to parts of speech, devil was quite a versatile word. You could also use it as a verb meaning “to prepare food with hot and spicy seasonings” or as an adjective to describe food prepared in that manner. In other words, you could (and people did) devil a biscuit and then eat your deviled biscuit.

 

The Devil Wears Paprika

 

The earliest known reference to deviled eggs is from Five Years Before the Mast, Jacob Hazen’s 1854 account of his experiences on a whaling ship and a man-of-war. “I’ve had one supper to-night already,” his friend says, “but I don’t care to go a second cargo on deviled eggs and Bologna sausages.” 

 

Whether those deviled eggs lived up to their name is anyone’s guess—but 19th-century recipes for the dish probably wouldn’t impress anyone who carries hot sauce in their bag. A typical filling featured egg yolk, melted butter, vinegar, mustard, and salt and pepper, with the occasional mention of a “little red pepper,” “curry,” or “deviled ham.”

 

These days, deviled eggs usually get their kick from cayenne pepper or paprika sprinkled on top. If that’s hardly red-hot enough for your fancy, there are all sorts of recipes for “spicy deviled eggs”—which you now know is a pretty redundant name.

 

 

Source: Why Are They Called “Deviled Eggs” If There’s No Devil in Them?

Edited July 19 by DarkRavie